Promoting the proper use of IEC 61508 and related standards.
The 61508 Association: Photos © United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
The 61508 Association (T6A) is a cross-industry group of organisations with a common interest in functional safety, particularly in applying IEC 61508 and related standards correctly in order to demonstrate compliance and improve safety for all.
Read more about T6A
The 61508 Association members come from many sectors with diverse backgrounds and now span more than just British Industry with members from Europe and Australia. We are a technical Association that believes in networking, mutual support and the sharing of functional safety knowledge to promote and improve safety, especially functional safety.
We develop and publish many useful and informative guides and assessment tools which are available to all (not just our members) and are free of charge. However, many believe our biggest benefit is the content, discussions and mutual support that is available in our general meetings and from our community.
Our members recognise IEC 61508 and related standards as the benchmark for achieving functional safety and managing risks in a proportionate way. Fundamentally, our members believe in developing and improving functional safety for both its users and its practitioners.
For a list of current members for The 61508 Association (T6A), please see Members.
Are you an experienced functional safety professional looking for a community to help keep abreast of industrial functional safety good practice? Or are you new to functional safety and looking for a community to help widen your functional safety awareness? If you are involved with functional safety we welcome your interest and would like to hear from you . New Association members are always welcome (join us).
The 61508 Association Membership
The 61508 Association members are a mix of roles, responsibilities and competencies but collectively we have identified some main member benefits.
Knowledge Centre
The 61508 Association holds and creates detailed information about the standards and a download centre with documents intended for those needing a more in-depth consideration of technical issues.
CASS
Conformity Assessment of Safety-related Systems
(CASS), is an open and transparent methodology for assessing compliance to IEC 61508 and related standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why join The 61508 Association?
Benefits include the following.
- Sense of functional safety community and associated support.
- Opportunity for functional safety biased networking with members and observers.
- Opportunity to discuss and debate with like-minded functional safety practitioners.
- Opportunity to understand current trends, opportunities, challenges and solutions in functional safety.
- Access to interesting functional safety presentations from members and selected guests.
- Ability to influence industrial functional safety guidance (via working groups).
- Ability to influence functional safety standards development.
- Mechansim for staying abreast of industrial functional safety and associated topics.
- Mechanism for widening / developing your functional safety awareness.
- Mechanism to demonstrate functional safety continuous personal development (CPD) to relevant stakeholders (e.g., UKAS, HSE).
You can find out more about joining The 61508 Association here.
What is the cost of membership?
How do I join?
Membership of the The 61508 Association is open to companies or organisations engaged in any aspect of safety-related systems and which support the aims of the Association – to realise the commercial benefits of the implementation of IEC 61508 (and / or related standards) and to promote the demonstration of compliance using an open, transparent and consistent method.
Who are our members?
We have a wide variety of members in The 61508 Association a full list with contact details can be found on our members page here
Where can I download documents?
We have a large repository of documents you can download in the DOWNLOADS section of the website. We also have a knowledge hub which has detailed information on standards.
Next Meeting
The 61508 Association holds several meetings during the year the next meeting is detailed below.